Rochelle Canteen’s At-Home Specials Concludes With One of Copenhagen’s Brightest Talents
It’s been a long week and Margot Henderson has spent almost every moment of it cooking, tweaking and adjusting recipes until each plate is perfect. She’s testing dishes for Rochelle Canteen’s At-Home Specials series and has figured out the majority of the dishes for each of the first three weeks. But for the series’ final week, Barr – the formidable Copenhagen restaurant that takes a more relaxed, classical approach to the Nordic cuisine of its family tree – and the food of its head chef Mia Christiansen presented its own set of challenges and inspirations.
“I’d always heard about Barr,” Henderson tells me over the phone. “We met Mia and her girlfriend Stefanie [Ezra Petersen, Barr’s manager] on one of the last days of Magnus Nilsson’s restaurant Fäviken in Sweden. And we’d gone out there – we’d all had meals separately – but at the end of the night when everyone was quite merry, we met up and chatted. And then the next day, we got the cab back to the airport together, and she’s just fantastic and we all got on.”
Barr was founded in partnership between chef Thorsten Schmidt and René Redzepi, breathing new life into the space originally occupied by the latter’s groundbreaking restaurant, Noma. Playfully referred to as ‘Old Nordic’ soon after it opened, Barr turned its focus to classic regional dishes with the application of the New Nordic school’s hyperlocal, hyperseasonal approach, with plenty of foraging featuring. Christiansen, a former cook at Noma, took over as Head Chef soon after the restaurant opened.
Despite Henderson’s years in the game, she expresses being genuinely blown away by Christiansen’s talent. “She’s got that sureness that she knows exactly what she’s doing,” she says. “We were going to Noma to go to the game season, and then we went to Barr the next day and had their Christmas meal, which was mind-blowing. They are just incredible cooks.”
Doing justice to Christiansen’s food was something that neither Henderson nor her head chef Ben Coombs took lightly, even in the natural, precise style that Rochelle Canteen is known for. “I love Nordic food, and I love everything they stand for. But this is more homey – there’s nothing from Italy, like we would have,” she laughs. “I’ve tried to make the menu ‘local’, with some of their thoughts in it.”
To that end, those who have visited Barr in the past will recognise many of the restaurant’s greatest hits on Henderson’s menu. Roast bone marrow with hedgerow jelly and rye bread, and a savoury waffle – a dish added on Christiansen’s recommendation – served with cured river trout, roe, and pickles, is a riff on a classic Barr dish originally served with kalix löjrom, a delicate salmonid roe coveted across Scandinavia.
Likewise, a pork meatball with chard is a Hendersonian take on the humble Danish frikadeller, a dish that the Barr team placed back in the culinary spotlight when they first opened. “Their food is quite ‘oomph’”, she says. “You definitely need to go hungry.” Of particular note is Barr’s choux pastry, which has graced Christiansen’s menu in several forms. For her own version, Henderson decided on the addition of sweet caramelised apple, hazelnut caramel, and luxurious cream, as a way to round off the meal. Meanwhile, natural ales and wines from boutique seller Passione Vino in Shoreditch pay homage to their Danish counterpart’s affinity for fine ales.
The last parts of the menu were still being finalised when we spoke recently; with her energy and irrepressibly creative streak, it’s something that I suspect she and Coombs went back and forth on plenty of times. “I’m going to get rid of that beef tartare, and go – ooh, do I want to do bone marrow? Oh, god”, she mulls. “See? It’s my problem! Once I got onto it, I want to do it all! I might leave it for a minute.”
Each box serves two people. Some home preparation required.
Premium Box (£150) includes:
- Cocktail: Natural Ale
- Wine: A Vita Rosato, Gaglioppo
- Cured River Trout, Kohlrabi, Pickled Cucumber, Dill & Waffle
- Beetroot, Horseradish & Wild Mushroom Salad
- Roast Bone Marrow, Hedgerow Jelly & Rye
- Green Salad
- Pork Meatball & Chard
- Red Cabbage
- Celeriac Mash
- Kale
- Profiterole, Caramelised Apple, Hazelnut Caramel & Cream
- Table decoration item hand-selected by the Rochelle Canteen team
Standard Box (£80) includes:
- Cured River Trout, Kohlrabi, Pickled Cucumber, Dill & Waffle
- Beetroot, Horseradish & Wild Mushroom Salad
- Roast Bone Marrow, Hedgerow Jelly & Rye
- Green Salad
- Pork Meatball & Chard
- Red Cabbage
- Celeriac Mash
- Kale
- Profiterole, Caramelised Apple, Hazelnut Caramel & Cream
The Resy At Home Specials takeout package will be available for collection or delivery from Rochelle Canteen, only on Resy, on Saturdays (7, 14, 21, 28) throughout November. The package inspired by Mia Christiansen will be available for collection or delivery on Saturday 28th November. To buy your ticket, click here.
David Paw is Resy’s International Editor — follow him on Instagram. Follow Resy, too.
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